With poll numbers in the dumps and the special election just eight days away, California’s longtime lottery contractor, Rhode Island-based gaming technology and services company GTECH, pumped another $250,000 today into “Californians for Modernization,” the committee it created in March to support Proposition 1C.

Prop. 1C, of course, calls for modernizing the state lottery — a potential bonanza for GTECH — while letting the state borrow against future lottery earnings to solve its enormous current budget crisis.

This latest contribution brings GTECH’s total ante thus far to $1.25 million. But GTECH still hasn’t given as much as Prop. 1C’s biggest donor: the Service Employees International Union, which through its state council and Local 1000 — representing nearly 90,000 state workers — has given more than $1.4 million.